Clarington Older Adults remember veterans

Remembrance Day ceremony at seniors' club draws large crowd

Clarington Older Adults remember veterans

Jason Liebregts / Metroland

BOWMANVILLE -- Clarington Older Adult Association joined with the Legion Branch 178 for a Remembrance Day luncheon on November 6 for seniors, including Irma Wreggitt, at the Clarington Beech Centre. November 6, 2012

CLARINGTON -- Flag bearers streamed into the Beach Centre as the Royal Canadian Legion Bowmanville Branch marched in the colours for the Clarington Older Adults Association Remembrance Day ceremony on Nov. 6.

The COAA group was bedecked in poppies as it sang Onward Christian Soldiers, and bowed silver-haired heads in prayer before the wreaths were laid to honour the veterans, comrades, family and friends who had served in Canada or the Allied forces.

"This is the only event that makes me nervous beforehand. It's serious and you want to make sure it's done right and respectfully," said Angie Darlison, COAA executive director.

There are almost as many experiences of war as there were people at the COAA event. Many served in the Second World War. Others were involved in conflicts such as the Korean War, Canadian peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East and the Cold War.

"We're lucky to be back. A lot of people in our Legion are not here," said Fred Brown, whose Second World War tour of duty took him through England, France, Belgium, Germany and Holland.

Irma Wreggitt was a wireless operator for the Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. She was stationed in Ontario, teaching Morse code to air gunners before they were sent overseas.

"I was 19 when I enlisted and stayed until the end of the war," said Ms. Wreggitt. "My family was all army. My brother, a bunch of uncles; and my dad was in the First World War."

During the Second World War, Bill Kilpatrick was a young man serving on the North Atlantic convoy as a radar operator on a freighter that escorted ships from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland.

"Radar was new then. You turned the aerial by hand," said Mr. Kilpatrick.

For a 15 year old becoming too old for his orphanage in Quebec City, Steve Soulis saw the military as a lifeline when he desperately needed one. The teen applied to the soldier training apprentice training program, designed to replace the high number of soldiers leaving the forces after the Second World War.

"I was what they call a boy soldier ... I was praying I would be accepted. What else are you going to do in life at 15?" said Mr. Soulis, who received an education and served in Canadian peacekeeping missions in Egypt and Saudi Arabia during his military career.

Korean War veteran Art Daigle came from a military family in New Brunswick before enlisting as field service officer, running artillery, rations and fuel and more during the war between North and South Korea.

"(The Korean War) was very sad for children. We were in places where the starvation was difficult. These people went through hell," said Mr. Daigle.

Joe Beshara was a sailor in the Cold War from 1955 to 1962, stationed to keep Russian submarines at bay. He remembers the tense two hours while a peace deal was negotiated which would either defuse the hostilities between Russia and the United States or escalate them into a full-blown nuclear war.

"If nothing was resolved in that two hours, you wouldn't be here. None of the people in this building would be here. It was really tense," said Mr. Beshara. "I was in the middle of the Atlantic ... We were told 'Don't expect nothing' if we went back into port because there'd be nothing there."

The Bowmanville Legion reaches out with Remembrance Day events across Clarington, including ceremonies at cenotaphs in Orono, Newcastle, Bowmanville and Newtonville.

The COAA Remembrance ceremony, which is fully accessible and indoors, drew 175 people.

"We hold it to give the seniors a chance who can't get to the cenotaph on a cold day," said John Greenfield. "They remember it more. (But) the people who go to the cenotaph are just as dedicated."